College Football Week 8: Gut Reactions, CFB Playoff Projections

After another exciting week filled with statement wins and upsets, we project our Top 4 CFB Playoff teams and offer gut reactions to College Football Week 8. 

College Football Week 8 brought us another week of statement wins and upsets. There weren’t any earth-shattering upsets but the polls are definitely going to look different heading into Week 9, even if the CFB Playoff race hasn’t changed much.

Alabama bounced back from a tough loss to Tennessee, as we thought they would, while Oregon, TCU, and Oklahoma State all had legitimate, statement wins.

We offer our gut reactions to all of it and we will project our top four teams for the College Football Playoff following Week 8.

We’ll start in the Big 12

TCU and Oklahoma State both have CFB Playoff opportunities

If you haven’t been taking TCU seriously, you need to start as they notched another top-25 win over Kansas State on Saturday. That’s four weeks in a row with wins over Oklahoma, Kansas, Oklahoma State, and Kansas State.

I know the Jayhawks and Sooners have fallen off a bit. But the Cowboys showed they aren’t going anywhere, at least in the Big 12 race with their win on Saturday over Texas.

The Longhorns, with two losses and the tiebreaker going to Oklahoma State, are going to need a lot of help, at least two losses by the Cowboys to reach the title game.

In terms of help, TCU and Oklahoma State don’t need any. Both teams control their own destiny in the Big 12 title race and in the College Football Playoff race too.

If TCU wins out, the Horned Frogs will go to the College Football Playoff. I have no doubt about it. And Oklahoma State is going to have a very good shot too.

If they finished 12-1 and beat the one team (TCU) that beat them, they would have to feel good about their resume and their chances. They aren’t quite as big a slam dunk as an undefeated team with all the SEC contenders, but some chaos will happen eventually.

Everyone wants to talk down on the Big 12 but the league has two teams (not Texas or OU) with a legit chance of reaching the College Football Playoff.

Kansas State shouldn’t be forgotten and with Adrian Martinez getting hurt, it was a bummer, because it would have been fun to see what the Wildcats could do in that matchup.

However, their Big 12 title hopes aren’t cooked. They have one loss and just need to beat Oklahoma State and win out to reach the title game.

They control their Big 12 destiny, but their playoff hopes, which were a long shot anyway, are finished.